IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v96y2019icp250-254.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Association of body weight perception and unhealthy weight control behaviors in adolescence

Author

Listed:
  • Kennedy, Andrea K.
  • Schneiderman, Janet U.
  • Ramseyer Winter, Virginia

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to determine how body weight perception is related to weight control behaviors among a nationally representative sample of adolescents. Data came from the CDC's nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2013 (n = 13,857). Mean age was 16.2 years old. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to analyze the relationship between body weight perception (very underweight, slightly underweight, about the right weight, slightly overweight, and very overweight) and both unhealthy weight control behaviors individually (fasting, taking diet pills, and vomiting or taking laxatives) and any unhealthy weight control behavior, controlling for age, race/ethnicity, and BMI percentile and stratifying by gender. 13.35% of the sample reported fasting, 5.13% reported taking diet pills, and 4.20% reported vomiting or taking laxatives. Among girls, there was a significant positive association between feeling very underweight compared to about the right weight and all unhealthy weight control behaviors. In addition, feeling slightly overweight and very overweight increased the odds of fasting behavior or any unhealthy weight control behavior. Among boys, feeling very underweight, slightly overweight, and very overweight was associated with fasting, taking diet pills, vomiting or using laxatives, and any unhealthy weight control behavior. Both boys and girls engage in unhealthy weight control behaviors at a high rate, and the association with feeling under- and overweight overall increases the odds of these unhealthy behaviors. Health promotion efforts should focus on encouraging a healthy, normal body weight perception among adolescents in an effort to reduce unhealthy weight control behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kennedy, Andrea K. & Schneiderman, Janet U. & Ramseyer Winter, Virginia, 2019. "Association of body weight perception and unhealthy weight control behaviors in adolescence," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 250-254.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:96:y:2019:i:c:p:250-254
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.11.053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918305413
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.11.053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sukkyung You & Kyulee Shin, 2019. "Body Esteem among Korean Adolescent Boys and Girls," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Eunsoon Lee & Gyu-il Lee, 2021. "Perceived Exposure and Acceptance Model of Appearance-Related Health Campaigns: Roles of Parents’ Healthy-Appearance Talk, Self-Objectification, and Interpersonal Conversations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Kennedy, Andrea K. & Schneiderman, Janet U. & Negriff, Sonya, 2020. "Body appreciation and body dissatisfaction between maltreated and comparison adolescents," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:96:y:2019:i:c:p:250-254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.